Passenger Rail System

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I rise first to commend the three Senators who have just completed their colloquy. They have been discussing an accomplishment this year that results from bipartisan efforts. I too would like to speak about a bipartisan effort that I have been engaged in with the Senator from New Jersey, who joins me on the floor today, which would be the passenger rail portion of the Transportation bill which the President has already signed.

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Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I am so pleased to have worked with Senator Booker on the rail portion and on the entire Transportation bill. I am pleased it has passed the House and Senate and been signed into law by the President--a major accomplishment.

I would note that predecessors of ours from our States were part of the last major effort for a comprehensive rail bill. My predecessor, Trent Lott, along with the late Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, were the authors of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act, which was introduced in 2007, and much work on it was done before Senator Lott resigned at the end of 2007. It was actually passed in 2008. So I think it is quite appropriate that Senator Booker and I would be allowed to follow in their footsteps and participate in this legislation, which deals with making our rail system safer in the United States and more efficient and puts greater attention on planning and efficiency. I know that Senator Booker shares my enthusiasm for the accomplishment that this Congress has made in that regard.

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Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, it probably doesn't come as a surprise for people to hear a Senator from the northeast be such a strong advocate of passenger rail and Amtrak. But I can tell you as this representative of Mississippi and a Senator from the southeastern part of the United States, we believe in passenger rail, too. It is important to the entire national economy, and so it is important to our economy. It is also important to the economy in my region of the country.

I am pleased and excited about the possibility of restoring passenger rail to the gulf coast for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. We made it work between New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf coast and Mobile and Orlando before the storm, and we think we can make it work now.

One provision in the bill establishes a new gulf coast working group, which will receive a $500,000 grant specifically for the purpose of returning rail to the area. Another provision creates a grant program that can assist applicants like the Southern Rail Commission and has worked to restore passenger rail to the gulf coast.

In addition, I am an advocate of competition, so I am pleased to see that this new legislation opens up the possibility of having private rail carriers competing for up to three of Amtrak's long-distance routes. I think in this way we can achieve cost savings, better performance, and good worker protections.

In closing, let me say that we are glad the law has been passed and signed. It seems from this angle that it was so inevitable, but I can tell you and I think Members of the floor on the Senate who are listening to this colloquy would have to admit that this didn't have to happen. As a matter of fact, it could easily have fallen off the rails or fallen off the tracks.

On a bipartisan basis, people on this side of the aisle and on Senator Booker's side of the aisle did not allow the distractions and the naysayers to prevail. We insisted that if we kept working, we could get this entire package done on a bipartisan basis.

I wish to salute Republican Members in the majority who put this forward from a committee standpoint, but I also want to salute my Democratic brothers and sisters who said: Yes, we can do this, and we ought to do it not as Republicans and Democrats but as Americans for the American economy. My hat is off to my partner in this effort and to everyone on both sides of the aisle for making this a reality.

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